Mold products are well known in the art and have been employed for molding food and confection products into a variety of shapes. Typical of the prior art arrangements is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,523 issued to Binley, May 24, 1988. In this reference an ice cream product mold is disclosed. The mold involves the use of a plunger and syringe to charge a mold with an ice cream product. The arrangement, although useful, involves several steps and would present some difficulty for use by a child.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,693, issued to Dana, May 16, 1972, discloses a plastic 20 mold for molding candy. The reference teaches an improved mold which is not as susceptible to heat damage when hot material is poured into the mold.
White et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,856, issued Dec. 10, 1996, provides a mold for a frozen confection. The mold permits a plurality of flavors to be incorporated into the same product.
A mold of the shaker type is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,220, and issued Nov. 2, 1976, to Greenberg. The arrangement provides a molding compound for mixing and pouring into a mold. The mixture simply hardens and a character is removed.
The existing molds in the art do not provide the possibility of using a conventional microwave oven to form lollipops and other confectionary products which also permits a user to view the formation process and have visual identification when the process is complete. It would be desirable to have a mold with these features; the present invention provides such features as well as a host of others.